71. It Is a Law of Divine Providence That We Should Act in Freedom and in Accord with Reason

It is generally recognized that we have a freedom to think and intend whatever we wish but not a freedom to say whatever we think or to do whatever we wish. The freedom under discussion here, then, is freedom on the spiritual level and not freedom on the earthly level, except to the extent that the two coincide. Thinking and intending are spiritual, while speaking and acting are earthly.

There is a clear distinction between these kinds of freedom in us, since we can think things that we do not express and intend things that we do not act out; so we can see that the spiritual and the earthly in us are differentiated. As a result, we cannot cross the line from one to the other except by making a decision, a decision that can be compared to a door that has first to be unlocked and opened.

This door stands open, though, in people who think and intend rationally, in accord with the civil laws of the state and the moral laws of society. People like this say what they think and do what they wish. In contrast, the door is closed, so to speak, for people who think and intend things that are contrary to those laws. If we pay close attention to our intentions and the deeds they prompt, we will notice that there is this kind of decision between them, sometimes several times in a single conversation or a single undertaking.

I mention this at the outset so that the reader may know that "acting from freedom and in accord with reason" means thinking and intending freely, and then freely saying and doing what is in accord with reason.

22. As for the thesis that the infinite elements in the human God are, in a distinct combination, one, this too can be seen as in a mirror in people. Every person has in him many constituents, and these beyond number, as we observed above, ¹ but still he is sensible of them as one. He does not know from sensation anything about his brains, his heart and lungs, his liver, spleen and pancreas. Neither does he know from sensation anything about the countless elements in his eyes, ears, tongue, stomach, reproductive organs, and all the rest. And because he does not know these from a sensation of them, he is to himself as though a single unit.

The reason for this is that these constituents are all in such a form that not one of them can be lacking; for it is a form receptive of life from the human God (as we established in nos. 4-6 above). The arrangement and interconnection of all these constituents in such a form produces the sensation and consequent idea of their being as though not many and not beyond number, but seemingly one.

One may conclude from this that the incalculably many elements which are united as though into one in a person, are, in the supreme person who is God, in a distinct combination one - indeed, in a most distinct combination one.

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